'Betrayal - Part One' is a follow on to The Complete Package.
***
I needed a drink in the worse way. Maybe a couple at the hotel bar and then go grab dinner at Jamie's restaurant. It is the best food in town hands down. I will keep it simple - steak, baked potato, salad, some great wine and a Grand Marnier after dinner. I will get a good nights sleep and catch my early flight. Too bad Jamie is out of town, he might have offered to fly me back in his Gulfstream. He did that for Laura.
Laura. She created all this work for me. I had to cancel my hunting trip in Alaska. I was not happy. Obviously she could not handle the investigation due to her involvement. Plus, she was on a high dollar, celebrity case. She was pulling in $2500 an hour.
The incident in the office that led to the termination of my buddies was... a mess. Not because it was pretty obvious they fucked up, but because they filed suit against the firm. All three for wrongful termination, claiming they were coerced to resign.
I spent the last four days interviewing all the witnesses including my old buddies. The termination suits had no merit, I negotiated those away. They were nuisance suits, Laura knew that, so she wouldn't go crazy about the settlements.
But then there was the civil suit filed by Jim against Laura for aggravated assault and battery. He had a broken jaw, loose and cracked teeth. He was still in the hospital although I think he was milking it for the law suit. I had to negotiate with him there, his jaw wired shut. Hard to understand him, I eventually asked him to write down his questions, answers and comments.
I felt sorry for him, We go way back. But he fucked up. Pretty obvious from the wits that he lost it. Insulting her was one thing, One of the wits recounted the incident in detail for me. He took notes for the meeting.
Jim was clearly out of line.
'You slut, you bitch! You seduced and married Robert to grab his practice by seducing and fucking him. You fucked him into believing you were in love with him. You don't deserve to run this firm! You are a whore. You are going to pay for this abuse and fucking up Robert's firm and Robert's team.'
Funny, I would agree with some but not all of that. He got some of that out of me one night on a hunting trip, sitting around a campfire, sharing a bottle of Crown Royal.
We talked about controlling women, my Laura in particular. She demanded a lot of me in bed. Sometimes it felt like she was acting, making me believe she was truly in love with me, but really putting on a show, a sex show. I shared too much with Jim.
She is young, attractive and great at oral sex. Those facts I can't dispute. My love for her is fading, sad to say. Just not as exciting as it once was.
And complicating the negotiation with Jim, he has a dirty video of me. Laura doesn't know that. She will never know about that. Never. She would be disgusted let alone mad. She doesn't do mad well.
None of that warranted a physical attack on my wife. I knew she has a street fighter mentality representing her clients. Man, she showed that to Jim in spades. He was no match for her.
Jim and I had not reached agreement. It was complicated. He was rattling the dirty video sabre.
It was Thursday, I had a 'do-gooder' event tomorrow back home. I told Jim I would be back next week sometime.
The hotel bar exceeded my expectations. The lighting nicely accented the immense bar. The backlighting of the bottles of alcohol standing tall on glass shelves backed by mirrors. The mirrors outlined by arches carved out of dark mahogany. The 80 inch LED TV hung about the arches, it looked out of place in the classy look of the bar area.
The bar tenders, male and female wore white dress shirts with ruffles running down the front, a black bow tie contrasting, but complementing the shirt, The shirt sleeves with french cuffs with black, shiny cufflinks. The look of a wedding tuxedo without a jacket. I like it. Maybe I will just eat dinner at the bar.
No open chairs at the bar, damn! Plenty of booths and tables, but I did not want to do that. Seems so lonely.
My guess, most of the occupants were business people with the same goal - have a few, eat dinner and get out of this town tomorrow morning.
I decided to wedge my way between occupants and place my drink order, then just hang close to the bar on watch for an empty stool. I chose a slot between two people with their backs facing each other. I placed my Crown and seven order and waited. i overheard the conversation to my left. Female with her back to me, speaking to a guy.
'Good deal! That was a great day for you! So happy for you,' he said.
'Well it is all because of you Greg,' she said, then she leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. They were holding hands.
'Are you sure about dinner? I know this great place just down the street. The owner is the CEO of the holding company and sometimes cooks there. How cool it that?' he said.
'My flight is at 6 AM! You wore me out today! I am going to do room service and get to bed early.'
She left, there were other people lurking, ready to jump the seat. He stopped them.
'I promised him this stool,' he said, nodding at me.
I said, 'Well thank you, I appreciate that. I thought at 5 o'clock this place would be empty.'
He swept his hand across the bar and said, 'Look at this place. it is alive, alive with people here to relax, some of them looking for companionship.'
'She was quite attractive,' I just threw that out there.
'Oh, Meryl? She is my employee. I am glad she is on my team.'
'What does your team do?'
'Drugs, legal drugs. We are sales reps for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. We are part of JaimCo.'
That's Jamie's holding company. I won't share that, I'll see if he slams them in anyway. Matches up to the Jaimie restaurant talk.
'I am sales manager for North America. She was my pitch person for a major healthcare system today. She was great. Healthcare moves slow, but I believe we will get the deal. I will come back next week to close the deal.'
'Impressive.'
'And you?' he asked.
'I am Robert. I have a law firm. We have an office here. My wife actually runs the firm, I am relegated to carrying her briefcase. A pretty face for the older female potential clients.'
It sounded like a robot response other than the Laura comment.
'That sounds bitter. I would agree with the pretty face, you are quite attractive.'
'Thanks, but I was just joking. She is great. She is younger than me, has more fire in the furnace. I am good with that.'
Pretty heavy stuff for someone I don't know. I looked up at the TV in front of us.
'Oh my god, I forgot the Chiefs were playing tonight. That's my team. I live in LA but I root for the Chiefs. I just like them.'
He slapped me on the back.
'My Chargers are going to bring them down tonight Robert!'
We watched the game and enjoyed the banter back and forth as each team had the inevitable successes and failures in a hard fought NFL game.
At one point I took a close look at him. He was unbelievably handsome. Thick blond hair that looked professionally quaffed. Crystal blue eyes that pierced me when gazed upon. He was wearing a dress shirt, but he had ditched the tie and opened the top button, a little bit of chest peaking out. The shirt was tight against a muscled chest and flat stomach.
I was feeling those feelings again, the same feeling that led to Jim's dirty video. I shook it off, never again, that chapter was closed. But, I was aroused. I could picture myself between Greg's legs, doing what I had only done once before.
We - maybe just me - was having a blast. We kept on drinking throughout the game. I was enjoying his company. He tended to touch me when making a point. Hand on hand, hand on shoulder, nothing extraordinary, stuff extrovert sales people tend to do.
The Chiefs were winning going into the 4th quarter. The bar area was filling up with booth and table occupants. It was getting really loud, I could not hear my favorite Thursday night Football TV team - Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit.
'Greg, I can't hear Al and Kirk. I am going to my room to watch the game.
He placed his hand on the inside of my thigh, close to my penis.
